Communication, budget subcommittees continue work on charges

STERLING — Discussions on the endorsed diploma are continuing throughout RE-1 Valley School District. On Monday, the District Accountability Advisory Committee talked about how to proceed with community engagement on the topic.

There was conversation about holding meetings that begin with small group roundtable discussions for 40 minutes to an hour. At each table could be members of the Response to Intervention (RtI) Committee, who created the endorsements RE-1 is looking at using, as well as administrators and/or Board of Education members.

Following the roundtables there could be a 20 minute discussion with the whole group.

DAAC members felt the roundtables at the beginning would be less intimidating to people and provide a chance to have good discussions and get everyone's questions answered. Plus, they thought it would help build trust, something that seems to be a continuing issue in the district.

In other business, Superintendent Betty Summers shared information on Colorado school funding.

“The good news is the economy in Colorado is better then was anticipated (according to economic forecasts),” she said. “If everything remains consistent there is maybe more money for education.

“But we never know how things will fall into place.”

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She encouraged DAAC members to pay attention to the work State Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, is doing to make changes to the School Finance Act, which was put into place in 1992.

“If he gets some things through the General Assembly it will go to a vote next fall, the November election.”

However, she pointed out while any changes made could have an impact in the future, they wouldn't necessarily impact budget items for the 2013-2014 school year.

The Board of Education will hold community budget meetings at Caliche and Sterling high schools in late February and early March.

DAAC subcommittees are also continuing their work.

On Monday, the subcommittee charged with proposing communication sources that meet parental and patron needs, discussed school websites and wanted to know who's responsible for keeping them updated.

There was also talk about schools calling local newspapers more often to publicize what they're doing and giving radio stations a community calendar to broadcast.

Conversation focused on how to better utilize the Internet and the ability to stream video, as well. Summers said the district may be able to broaden their bandwidth next year because of Eagle-Net, a quasi-government-run Internet service provider, which would help them be able to post videos.

There was a suggestion to connect the video taping of school board meetings to student service requirements through Individual Career and Academic Plan (ICAP), and have students video the meetings and post the videos.

Additionally, the subcommittee went over their suggestions from last year and questioned why the Board of Education has only fulfilled one of them.

The subcommittee charged with making suggestions including program changes or modifications if further budget reductions are required, discussed ag program pickups, how they're utilized and how they're purchased. District Finance Director Deb County is going to look into the cost to do some employee reimbursement versus the purchase of a pickup.

Secondly, the subcommittee talked about funding for meals, hotels and transportation for state-related events and if there's a way to help with those expenses.

Lastly, they discussed making the large packets that are sent out for parents to fill out every year at the beginning of the year and possibly making those available electronically. That will reduce not only the paper expense, but the staff time that it takes to compile and send the packets out.

They will be contacting an IT representative to talk to about how they would implement that.

This subcommittee was originally supposed to report to the Board of Education on Feb. 4. They will ask for an extension to present in March.

During review of the Building Accountability Committee (BAC) minutes, SHS principal Dianna Chrisman talked SHS BAC's discussion regarding coloradoschoolgrades.com and the inequities of how the site determines school grades.

The site gave SHS a C.

Chrisman pointed out that when using the website to compare schools it's not really comparing apples to apples.

Grades on the website are based off of the School Performance Frameworks.

“The real difference is that smaller schools – this is not meant to be a, 'we're better than they are, they're better than we are' – but there are certain disaggregated groups that they are not required to report out on, because of the numbers.”

If schools have fewer than 16 students in certain categories they don't report, so they're automatically given 100 percent.

“When you take those numbers and you either take them out of ours or put those numbers into theirs, it's a completely different picture,” Chrisman said.

The actual School Performance Frameworks are on schoolview.org. She recommended going to that site to see which areas schools have been required to report out on.

Later on, Assistant Superintendent Ron Marostica gave an update on curriculum work and common course numbering.

The Science Framework Committee will be presenting their revised frameworks to the Response to Intervention (RtI) Committee soon and then it will go to the DAAC. They hope to go before the Board of Education before early spring.

Also, the Reading/Writing Framework Committee will spend two days in February listening to publisher presentations, before making a decision about support material to purchase.

He pointed out that it looks as if the State School Board is going to hold the timeline for the April 1 “decision about finalizing the (regulations) for those introductory pieces of the READ (Reading to Ensure Academic Development) Act.”

The regulations will have a big impact on the committee's selection of support material.

Marostica also talked about the work teachers are doing to complete common course numbering, which involves linking course names with course descriptions given by the state. He said the district will make the Feb. 1 deadline to submit course numbers for all 6-12 grade courses.

The deadline for identifying preschool-fifth grade course numbers is May 1.